ORIGIN

1975 Triumph TR7 FHC Racecar

This 1975 Triumph TR7 FHC racecar is said to have been built for the 2012 Grassroots Motorsports Challenge where it won the ‘Highest Finishing Classic Car’ trophy. According to the seller, the car was built from a 30k mile TR7 coupe chassis and the drivetrain of a TR8 donor car. Over 1150 hours are said to have been put into the build, which included disassembly and re-paint, electronic ignition, and new brakes and suspension. Find it here on eBay in Tampa, Florida without reserve.

Comments

I built this car with a mechanic buddy for the GRM Challenge. We really did put 1,150 hours into the build. We recorded the time spent each day in a log. It does include the time removing the parts from the donor TR8, stripping to bare metal, etc. Oh, and we had to paint it twice because we used cheap paint that changed colour over time. We bought the “How to improve your TR7 for racing book”, and followed the steps.

When we weighed the car in 2011 it came in at 2018 lbs. Since the rules allow, we removed the front bumper for 2012, so it easily came in under 2000 lbs. We liked to say it handled like a Miata and accelerated like a Boxster S. (We’ve driven many of both, so its the easiest comparison.) 13.5 second quarter mile without drag slicks, pretty good for a car built in 1975. And it autocrossed well too. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nw-BsEnl6Vg&feature=youtu.be

All I can say is that I own 2 TR6s and 1 TR8. The TR8 is original and the ride is quite nice compared to the TR6. Two quite different cars. The TR8 is smooth, dependable and modern where the TR6 is more primitive, not to say one is better than the other. Like Panteras, many TR8s have been highly modified. While I have decided to keep mine original, the modified TR8s scream. Add to the fact of limited production, (2750 built) and the number left from that number, maybe someday TR8s will get the respect the Sunbeam Tiger is now getting.

Ftumpch We share a soft spot for TR7. As I read through the BAT comments I have a slide show frame running on my desk which features the TR7 Victory Edition that I bought new. It remains, 36 years later, the only car that I bought new. I enjoyed it in good weather. It would not go uphill if there was any snow on the road. I had to get towed up the Middlebury gap in Vermont due to snow. Eventually, year 2 of ownership, the bogus electronic ignition began it’s intermittant failure demise. The local delear initially refused to acknowledge that there was a problem. By the time BL owned up to it there were no more replacement ignitions in the US supply chain. It was time for a Fiat 124 Sport Coupe

I have a soft spot for the TR7… in fact it was the first car I ever bought for myself, mostly because of the green carpet and tartan seats.

Basically though what I’ve always thought is that it is the ultimate hot-rodders’ and customisers’ car (discounting Japanese cars… but with a few notable exceptions they don’t really count as “cars”). They have great bones, they have racing heritage and giant-killing ability, they have a face that only a mother could love, and you’d have to be slightly anti-social/eccentric/cheapskate to own one. Hence, nobody’s going to care what you do to them. It’s a license to go nuts, in every possible sense of the word!

The Saab version of the Triumph OHC engine and later Saab modified versions DO NOT fit or work with the TR7 or any of its components. Let us not forget that the Saab engine sits backwards in the engine bay, nose facing the firewall — and you thought British Leyland cornered the market on crazy ideas and half-baked engineering!

The Saab turbo engine won’t package in a TR7 engine bay unless you have exhaust plumbing protruding up from the hood in some weird way.

It is well known among Triumph faithful that Saab dictated some of the design features of the slant 4, especially the placement of the water pump.

A lot of the engine issues with the TR7 four’s reliability, as I understand, were caused by owners skipping the manufacturer’s requirement to re toque the heads at a given mileage. This resulted in leaking heads.

Don’t forget that the most poplar Triumph car in the 1970s was the TR7. Triumph sold more than 130,000 of these cars . I am not sure but I believe it was the highest production of any Triumph model.

The TR7 actual design was started in early 70s, way ahead of the of the wedge styling that came with the Esprit, the 308 Ferrari’s, and the first gen MR2. Labor problems started and stopped the car from production and plagued it with quality problems.

They only made 2750 of the TR8, which have a surprising race history in both IMSA and rallying. There was no factory support because of the troubles at British Layland. There was even a failed attempt to enter LeMans with twin turbo TR8. They basically ran out of money and time. That car still exists and is in England.

As for where to race it, unfortunately too expensive for my Chump Car budget but I am quite sure one could get a hall pass from the $500 limit if trying to beat the Beemers with this one! Otherwise more of a track day toy.

One just needed to witness Kenny Slagle’s yellow TR-8 roadster in SCCA C-prod oh so many years ago to know how exciting and quick these things can be. So heavily maligned for both engineering and design, but if you put it next to any number of cars built since then you’ll see the influence.

This looks like a top rate build. I think it would be great fun to take it back onto the street. No matter what you do with it, at the current price it looks like a real bargain to me.

+1 @Beyfon – One has to admire the effort. Yet in some sense this car is obsolete since the 2012 GRM Challenge is over and by virtue of the engine swap it’s likely to be ineligible for many popular race classes.

I have to echo Beyfon here. By the time BL finally got around to actually making a car with the new slant-4, Saab had spent four years of 99 production scratching their heads over various design flaws (head bolts, timing chain, electrics, cooling, etc.) and bringing the production in-house. By 1972, the B engine worked, and the new Dolly ran for a short while before overheating. It’s little wonder BL started installing Herald and Spitfire engines in these cars.

@Beyfon Not sure how many exist, but one of these showed up at the Saab Museum auction earlier this year. It has a visibly extended nose to fit the V8.

@Martin W., RD: Saab made this engine well into the 2000s (2010 9-5), before GM finally made them stop.

Come on now, are some of you guys lawyers? It is pretty clear from the Ebay ad that the car is built on a TR7 (which is why the VIN number gives the info about the 4-cyl engine in the heading) but that it has been painstakingly converted into a TR8. 1150 hours is probably accurate, this is not done over a few weekends.

About the Triumph 4-cylinder engines, it should be noted that only the early 1.7 and 1.85L Saab 99 had Triumph-based engines. (The last of the left-over Triumph engines were used for the very rare Saab 99 X7 bargain basement model where even the glove box lid was eliminated) Those engines were just as troublesome in the Saab 99. Head bolts were mounted at an angle, and had a habit of snapping when they had corroded. With a snapped head bolt, you could never get the head off… The later Saab 2.0 engine was so heavily redesigned to get rid of the inherent weaknesses of the original engines that it is dubious if the reliability of those engines can be used as an argument for the Triumph engines.

A very unrelated comment is that Saab reportedly built a number of prototypes of Saab 99 with the Stag V8 engine before wisely cancelling that project developing the turbo engines instead.

This car didn’t do you run at the Grassroots Motorsports 2012 Dollar Challenge. Also it is a TR 7 body with a TR 8 drivetrain swap done very well. It did have a Rover engine installed forbigger displacement more power. The build quality of this car in person is amazing it is very very well executed car. It did win the highest place in classic award at the challenge this year. You can find more information about the challenge at: grassrootsmotorsports.com/challenge

Perhaps I should have put it better and qualified my statement. I race 4 cylinder powered British cars. I repaired British 4 cylinder powered cars for many years(over 40 years)..still do. My first car was a 1959 Triumph 10 estate with a tiny 4 cylinder. I like 4 cylinder engines.. It has been my experience that the 4 cylinders engines in TR 7s were not a very good engines. They tended to fail much like and for the very same reasons the Stag engines tended to fail. I apologize to anyone I insulted with my crapcan remark about the crapcan engine produced by Triumph at that time. Say does anyone know where I can get a 2012 Triumph doorstop shaped car? I hear they were the shape of things to come. I always wanted one of those wedge shape garages I saw in the Triumph commercials on TV.

I have owned all variations of the Triumph OHC 2.0-liter engine, including building two 16-valve versions here in the U.S.A. The 1975-77 engines were let down by a substandard cooling system, and electronic ignition. The original 4-speed manual was crap. By 1978, these issues were addressed, only to see production disrupted by a strike. By 1980, the TR7 — though not fast — was the most reliable engine Triumph ever built. Some versions that year had Bosch L-Jet EFI; all had Delco electronic ignitions, 12 vane water pumps and a redesigned cooling system. 5-speed manual was standard. All 1981s had EFI and were great cars. The 16 Valve engine is a real sweetheart, though it does not work well in the U.S. with the standard Triumph cam because of its high-revving nature. The best Triumph OHC engine is a 1981 8-vlave EFI with European high compression pistons, header and mild cam Horsepower is a smooth and reliable 130 or so and the TR7 — yes the TR7 — is a joy to drive when it set up this way. I know. I did it.

“The crapcan over heating four cylinder engines that came in these cars were basically half of the crapcan over heating Stag engines”

I wouldn’t characterize the slant-4 as “crapcan,” they had proven themselves nicely -lasting basically into the 90’s in Saabs. The Saab B variant came from this engine (derived from the Dolomite Sprint engine). Harry Webster himself was involved in the design.

The information in the data panel part of the listing says 4 cylinders in two different places, which is what the TR7 originally came with. The description is messy, with contradictions. The highbidder in this auction is legally obligated to buy. If the seller wants to claim it has the 4-cylinder that’s formally indicated in the listing, and that you misunderstood his (confusing) description, the highbidder could get a nasty surprise.

Unfortunately the seller mixes up the TR models and engines he is talking about. The listing says in a couple of places that there’s a 2.0L I4 engine in the car but the photos shows the Rover V8—-good, assuming the V8 comes in this auction. Reading between the lines, it looks like the TR7 Coupe body comes in the auction, not the TR8.

Looks like a great build that ended up with a fast car, and one of the better looking TR7s I have seen.

He says he’s giving away the 1,150 hours they have in the car, which is impressive because it’s even less than the 10 cents/hour that Peter Egan used to charge for his restored Sprites and TR3s.

I remember these things. I had a customer that had one. It was a convertible. She had me install a tonneau on it. She wanted to park it in downtown Houston with the tonneau on rather than the top up. Sounded good to me. I installed it and stepped back to look with pride at the work I had done. Then it hit me, if you park it outside with the tonneau on and it rained the water would run down the tonneau to the dash and into the dash. This would make bad electrics well..really bad. I called and asked “hey you arn’t going to park this outside where rain can get to it are you?”…the answer was” of course.” It was then when I explained water and gravity and well the shape of things to come. The crapcan over heating four cylinder engines that came in these cars were basically half of the crapcan over heating Stag engines. I guess they had to do something with all those Stag heads laying around the warehouse. This looks like a nice car and it has a hard top..a lot less flimsy than the convertibles.

Always liked “The Wedge”. It came along more in my time than my older brother’s (MGBs). I know about the leaking trannies, failed mechanics, etc. This one looks well sorted and a blast to drive with an aluminum V8. Well done.